(The author thanks Ernie Garcia,
former director of ABS/CBN in the Philippines, and Jim Kaplan for their editorial
comments.)

A

relatively
unknown but significant detail in Philippine history is the Bates Treaty, signed between
the U.S. and the Sultanate of Sulu on August 20, 1899. This article looks into the
background of that treaty and its consequences.

The Filipinos had been waging their War of Independence from Spain when the U.S.
"won" the Spanish-American War in the battle of Manila Bay. Despite the
opposition of anti-imperialist forces, the U.S. took possession of the Philippines.
Disappointed by and bitter about this unexpected and unforeseen move by the country he had
considered an ally, Filipino General Emilio Aguinaldo then turned the war into the
Philippine American War. Now labeling the ongoing independence war an
"insurrection," the U.S. proceeded to establish control of the Philippine
Islands through force. Filipino forces were increasing in the north and becoming a growing
concern of the U.S. military. In order to concentrate its limited forces in the north, and
to hold at bay the Moro resistance to its colonization in the Sulu Archipelago, the United
States resorted to the device of a treaty. Known as the Bates Treaty, it was the first
step towards the dissolution of Moro (Muslim population of the southern Philippines)
sovereignty and the dismantling of the Sulu Sultanate.

The Bates Treaty had promised to uphold mutual respect between the U.S. and the
Sultanate of Sulu, to respect Moro autonomy, and to not give or sell Sulu or any part of
it to any other nation. In addition, under this treaty the Sultan and his datus (tribal
chiefs) were to receive monthly payments in return for flying the American flag and for
allowing the U.S. the right to occupy lands on the islands.

A year prior, in December 1898, and with the Tausug (people of Jolo and neighboring
islands) unaware that they were among the pawn peoples whose fates were being decided at a
table thousands of miles away, the Treaty of Paris was signed, which included their
beloved string of islands. In the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam
to the U.S.; and for $20 million the entire Philippines. Included in this cession were the
territories of Mindanao and Sulu, which actually had not been in full Spanish control.
About two years later, on November 7, 1900, the U.S. paid an additional $100,000 to Spain
to include in the 1898 cession the Sulu islands stretching as far west as Sibutu and
Cagayan de Sulu.

After their defeat by the U.S., the Spaniards turned over a garrison on the island of
Siasi, southwest of Jolo, to the Sultan, who personally went from his seat in Maimbung on
the island of Jolo to Siasi to oversee the transfer. It was not until May 1899 that the
U.S. sent troops to take over the Spanish fort in Jolo. The Americans had not been able to
get troops to Jolo sooner because, as General. E.S. Otis wrote to Admiral Dewey on May 14,
1899, they could not afford to send any troops outside the Luzon area.

The fighting in Luzon was peaking at this time. In the south, the Filipino
revolutionary forces had already taken over from the Spaniards a fort in Zamboanga at the
southern tip of the island of Mindanao. General Otis estimated it would require 2,000 men
to retake the Zamboanga fort. The Spanish fort in the town of Jolo was much smaller and,
he surmised, would require only 600 men for its defense after the Spaniards left.
"[It] would be a good scheme to send the garries to Jolo immediately, or the Moros
would destroy the fortifications and guns and turn them upon us when we appear." So,
U.S. troops were immediately sent to Jolo. It was a timely move. The Moros, as he feared,
could easily have taken over the fort from the Spaniards. The Sultan had a standing army
of 26,000 men.

When the Americans arrived in Jolo, they told Jamalul Kiram II, the sultan of Sulu,
that the U.S. had taken over the affairs of Spain and asked the Sultan to recognize the
U.S. in the place of Spain, and honor the 1878 provisions of the treaty, which the Sultan
had signed with Spain. But the Sultan refused, stating that the U.S. was a different
entity and that the U.S. should enter into a new treaty with the Sultanate.

T

he Spanish Treaty of Peace, signed on July 22, 1878, was the last one signed by
the Sultan during the Spanish occupation of the town of Jolo. The treaty had allowed Spain
to set up a small garrison, covering about 15 acres, in the town of Jolo. Outside the
wall, the Sultan still ruled. Scholars fluent in both Spanish and Arabic found the treaty
to have translation flaws, which would have implications in the 1898 cession of the
Philippine Islands to the U.S. The Spanish version states that Spain had sovereignty over
Sulu, whereas the Tausug version describes a protectorate relationship rather than a
dependency of Spain. The treaty says that the customs, laws, and religion of the Moros
would not be subjected to Spanish jurisdiction. It made Jolo a protectorate of Spain. This
treaty also provided the sultan and his datus monthly payments of 250-1500 Mexican pesos.
The sultan had the mistaken impression that the agreement with the Spaniards would be
similar to the one he signed six months earlier with the British North Borneo Chartered
Company, which paid him $5,000 annually for the use of his North Borneo territories (now
Sabah). (The Philippines, under President Diosdado Macapagal in the 1960s, tried to
reclaim Sabah in the world court. This continues to be a source of irritation between the
Philippine and Malaysian governments.)

In place of the Spanish treaty, the sultan
presented Brig. General John Bates with a 16-point proposal. The proposal allowed the U.S.
to fly its flag side by side with the Sultanate's and required the U.S. to continue
monthly payments to the sultan and his datus. The U.S. was not to occupy any of the land
without the permission of the sultan. The sultan's proposal was rejected by Bates, because
it did not acknowledge U.S. sovereignty.

Bates then countered with his 15-point proposal, which included the recognition of U.S.
sovereignty over Sulu and its dependencies, the guarantee of non-interference with Moro
religion and customs and a pledge that the "U.S. will not sell the island of Jolo or
any other island of the Sulu Archipelago to any foreign nation without the consent of the
Sultan."

The sultan resisted Bates's offer for several months, but he could not get unanimous
support from his ruma bichara (ruling council) to press for his demands to the
Americans. Because of this internal dissension, led by his own prime minister and adviser
Hadji Butu and two of his top ranking datus, Datu Jolkanairn and Datu Kalbi, the sultan on
August 20, 1899 conceded to the Americans. The treaty terms were much more favorable to
the U.S. than what the Spanish treaty provided. According to Sixto Orosa, "The people
did not wish to come under American sovereignty; but Hadji Butu recognizing the folly of
armed resistance, exerted all his influence to prevent another useless and bloody
war." Hadji Butu and his son, Hadji Gulamu Rasul would later become favorites of
northern Filipinos for opposing the Sultans agama court and for favoring integration
of Moros into the Philippine republic.

By this time, the Sultanate was financially drained and weakened. From1830 when Spain
cut off the lucrative Manila-Jolo trade, because it felt threatened by the sultans
friendly relations with other European powers like Germany, France and Great Britain, it
had to fight Spains unrelenting attacks to subjugate it. Class differences was also
beginning to tear at the seams of the monarchy. The sultan never gave up his scheming
against the U.S. despite his datus friendliness to the Americans. John Bass of Harpers
Weekly reported that the sultan was importing a large cache of rifles and ammunition
"evidently to maintain his sovereignty." This would later be borne out by a
series of cotta (bunker or trench) wars against the Americans by the sultans
subjects. This might not seem plausible as the sultan had denied any knowledge of his
subjects doings when the U.S. accused him of promoting an insurrection against the
U.S. But, in August 1999, I received an e-mail from a friend of Ben Han, a Jolo native,
who informed me that Ben Hans grandfather was an Afghan mercenary hired by the
sultan as an officer in the fight against the Americans between 1906-1913.

Whether
the Bates treaty made a difference in later years, it is worth mentioning that there was a
very critical translation error from English to Tausug. The word sovereignty was not used
anywhere in the Tausug version. Article I of the Treaty in the Tausug version states
"The support, aid, and protection of the Jolo Island and Archipelago are in the
American nation," whereas the English version read "The sovereignty of the
United States over the whole Archipelago of Jolo and its dependencies is declared and
acknowledged." Najeeb Saleeby, an American of Lebanese descent who was assigned to
Mindanao and Sulu, caught the translation flaws and charged Charlie Schuck, son of a
German businessman, for deliberately mistranslating the treaty. Schuck was acquitted of
all legal charges. Whether mistranslated, the wording of the treaty provided the
justification for the U.S. decision to incorporate the Sulu Archipelago into the
Philippine state in 1946.

The Bates Treaty did not last very long. After the U.S. had completed its goal of
suppressing the resistance in northern Philippines, it unilaterally abrogated the Bates
Treaty on March 2, 1904, claiming the Sultan had failed to quell Moro resistance and that
the treaty was a hindrance to the effective colonial administration of the area. Payments
to the Sultan and his datus were also stopped. But in reality, Bates never intended to
ratify the treaty. As Bates would later confess, the agreement was merely a temporary
expedient to buy time until the northern forces were defeated. "The Treaty was made
at a time when nearly all the state volunteers had been sent home and other troops had not
arrived to take their places. It was a critical time, as all the troops were needed in
Luzon. The Government could not afford to stir up trouble with the Moros. The Treaty was
made as a temporary expedient to avoid trouble. It has served its purpose for three years,
and there is now no reason why the treaty which was but a temporary measure at a critical
time, should not be changed in accordance with the conditions."

The sultan protested vehemently and payments were reinstated. He argued
that he could not stop the Moro attacks against the Americans, because the U.S. had
imposed poll and land taxes on the population, a practice which the Moros were not used
to. In a letter to Governor General Luke Wright in April 1904, the sultan urged the
Americans not to "put yokes on our necks that we cannot bear, and don't make us do
what is against our religion, and don't ask us to pay poll tax forever and ever as long as
there is sun and moon, and don't ask taxes for land which are our rights of the Moro
people, including all that grows in Jolo and its islands."

Now securely in a position of power and strength after the defeat of the
northern Filipinos, the U.S. launched a determined campaign to suppress the ever-defiant
Tausugs, who were as opposed to U.S. rule as they had been to the Spanish occupation.
Known as the Moro Campaigns, this ferocious war between American soldiers and Moros
continued in the south of the Philippines for the next thirteen years, making it the
longest war in U.S. history. It was a bloody war; neither side took any quarter, nor gave
any. During its course, two infamous massacres occurred on the island of Jolo: Bud Dajo
in1906 and Bud Bagsak in 1913.

The Battle of Bud Dajo on March 7, 1906 was a consequence of the U.S.
"Policy of Disarmament" as implemented by General John "Black Jack"
Pershing. The Moro Wars taught the U.S., albeit costly, the inseparability of a Tausug and
his weapon. In turn, what the Moros had to reckon with in the American soldier was the
motivation that had fueled the Indian wars in America. The cry "A good Indian is a
dead Indian!" became "A good Moro is a dead Moro!" Passions raged and
collided, and blood flowed during that crimson period in Jolo. In the Dajo Massacre, some
900 men, women, and children were slaughtered atop an extinct volcano in the municipality
of Danag on the island of Jolo. The Americans spared not a single life of the brave
Tausugs who defended their mountain retreat -- not a man, woman or infant! Though the
bloody campaigns against the Moros officially ended in 1915, U.S. troops continued to
encounter sporadic Moro attacks for the next two decades.

Recognizing a flaw in the wording of the Bates Treaty, Governor Frank Carpenter
asked the sultan, his heirs, and his council to sign another agreement with the U.S. on
March 22, 1915--this time, for the Sultan and his heirs to abdicate their claims to the
throne. Article IX of the treaty refers to the "government of the sultan." More
importantly, the new agreement was meant to put an end to the existing parallel government
of the sultan; the sultan continued to rule as before exercising his powers in all aspects
of Moro life, collecting taxes, and trying civil and criminal cases. When the U.S.
protested the sultans practice, he simply demurred that his status as sovereign head
was reinstated when the U.S. abrogated the treaty in 1904. Thus, Carpenter wrote in his
1916 report that it was "necessary and opportune definitely to extinguish all claims
of the sultan to any degree of temporal sovereignty."

Implementation of the 1915 Agreement was further delayed by negotiations
over what the sultan and his heirs would receive in exchange for their giving up their
temporal powers. The negotiations which concluded in May 1919 gave the sultan a life-time
payment of P12,000 per annum and allowed him and his heirs the usufruct use of public
lands. Carpenter was confident that with the settlement final, the sultan would now
cooperate with the U.S. by fully recognizing U.S. sovereignty over Sulu. In his 1919
Report, Carpenter stated that "this satisfactory conclusion has resulted in the
forward advance of the policy of amalgamation and in the complete triumph of the ideals of
the Government and the Filipino people."

As the U.S. was preparing to give the Philippines commonwealth status in
preparation for its independence in 1946, some Moro leaders favored integration into the
republic but majority from both Sulu and Mindanao protested the plan to incorporate their
homeland into the Philippine state. "Our public land must not be given to people
other than the Moros," they urged. "[I]f we are deprived of our land, how can we
then earn our own living? A statute should be enacted to forbid others from taking over
our land, a safe and reliable way to forestall a tragedy." But their pleas fell on
deaf ears. The U.S. went ahead and turned over the islands to Filipino hands. In 1946,
contrary to its promise under the Bates Treaty "not to give or sell Sulu or any part
of it to any other nation," the U.S. incorporated Mindanao and Sulu against the will
of the Moro people into the state now known as the Philippine Republic.

(Madge Kho is a native of
Jolo and presently resides in Boston, Massachusetts where she is co-chair of the Friends
of the Filipino People, an organization founded in 1973 to oppose U.S. support for the
Marcos dictatorship. Madge is also a director of the Jolo Culture and Historical
Society. She has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's
Kennedy School of Government.)

SOURCES

Frank Carpenter, "Report of the
Governor of the Dept. of Mindanao and Sulu Frank Carpenter, January 1-December 31,
1914" in Report of the Philippine Commission, 1914, pp. 325-407 inclusive, Bureau of
Consular Affairs, War Dept., Government Printing Office (Washington, D.C., 1916).

James Francis Warren, The Sulu Zone 1768-1898:
The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a SE Asian
Maritime State, New Day Publishers (Quezon City, Philippines, 1985).

Marion Wilcox, Harpers History of
the War in the Philippines, Harper & Bros., (New York, NY, 1900).

Charles Wilkes, "Sooloo" in Volume V of Narrative of the United States
Exploring Expedition, during the years 1838, 1839, 1841, 1842, C. Sherman,
(Philadelphia, PA, 1844.).